August 2005

~15 WARREN . .

MILAH LIBIN beside her piece, which was staged in the wall, and on the floor.
in the dark.
sadly, the photo had to be flash-corrected, well . . come on, seriously !!
you . . HAD TO BE THERE !!

this was the small niche / ‘hole’ in the wall . . that she filled with dirt, and then planted appropriate ‘to-the-given-light’ conditions . . . growing & alive, as in LIVING … ‘organic’ things.
that means: plants. cactus. even some blooms, as in: flowers.
in a nutshell: a small and very beautiful ‘garden’ growing in the depths of a dark sub-floor = FUTURE SPEAK.
a found ‘grow’ site, with the artist imbedded soil ‘medium’ seeming to flourish, and theatrically play up . .
the dramatic & real world (energy) exchanges . . between ‘artificial’ light sources vs the subterranean dark.
there are no windows, no natural light, 2 floors beneath the street.
it’s a strange ironic thought, but it’s all nighttime, underneath the city that never sleeps.

MILAH’S . . dramatically lit ‘grow’, was not only a tiny habitat, of it’s own cosmos . . . but in a real sense, an inverted definition – of the larger exhibit as a whole.
an exhibit . . that threw theatrically staged ARTIFICIAL, esp NEON / COLORED, CREATIVE LIGHT to fight vs the DARK, and used ‘found’ archaic surfaces, mostly ‘as is’ . . to go up vs ART WORLD CONVENTION & WHITE WALLS, and came out . . on TOP.
15 WARREN STREET . . in 15 words.

where there is CREATIVITY, there is LIFE.
15 WARREN STREET . . in 7 words.

15 WARREN STREET in 2 words: live wire !!

actual. (electricity). metaphorically, symbolic. . . you name it.

grow & bloom, my little flowers of the night.

yeah. of course . .
it reminded me of OUR New Year’s Eve party. the big JOSH HARRIS / PSEUDO millennium 2 week downtown throw-down of YEAR 2000 – that became the basis for Ondi Timoner’s Sundance award winning . . ‘WE LIVE IN PUBLIC’ (2009).
also staged in area code 10007 TRIBECA’s abandoned warehouses, including underground ‘bunker’ rooms, Josh called it: QUIET. though it was anything, BUT.

SEAN VEGEZZI . . the new JOSH HARRIS, now there’s ‘FUNNIE’ THOUGHT.
and more true than you might think, at first glance.
though, of course SEAN doesn’t have an alter ego called .. LUVVY.

of course the big diff, between ‘QUIET’ . . and 15 WARREN STREET, besides the former’s $1 million dot.com budget (!!), was that QUIET took place pre 9/11 and the WORLD TRADE CENTER / TWIN TOWERS coming down, and 15 WARREN is what ? 12 years after.
and the next generation.

both are wild and raw, though I would say LUVVY caused QUIET to go somewhat, ‘over’ is being polite … the dark side. but the most strange thought to consider is, that ‘QUIET’. . leading into the chaos of 9/11 had . . many guns and even more gun imagery. and, there weren’t just many guns. ALFREDO MARTINEZ staged a whole ‘shooting’ gallery, open to the public . . a working high power assault rifle target range in the basement, as his performance piece. talk about: gritty.

our New’s Year party was like an apocalyptic ‘warning’, and this one is like the after-shock, after the death & dust have settled down. sweet but TOUGH, that is SEAN VEGEZZI . . in 3 words.
JOSH was a little more complex.
but, both spoke . . FUTURE SPEAK.

both celebrate at their hardcore core . . art without boundaries, art without white walls. and art without ‘suits’.

DAMN.

TOO MUCH TRAFFIC ON THE SITE / WHY AREN’T YOU GUYS OUT . . PLAYING IN THE SNOW ?
FILE UPLOADS ADMIN JUST CRASHED / WILL TRY TO CONTINUE LATER .. TODAY.
IT’S CALLED .. INDIE ART BLOGGING on a SHOE STRING. THE WEB BELONGS TO THE SUITS / IN CASE YOU HAVEN’T NOTICED,
IT’S NOT JUST THE ‘HOOD’, that got . . G-E-N-T-R-I-F-I-E-D.
of course you could always flip channels to AFC, hahaha.

in fact, SEAN VEGEZZI’ s piece was just about directly across from Milaah’s.
it sprawled across a wide stretch of the room, the core being a somewhat shallow ‘dig’ right down to the very earth ‘beneath’ our feet.

it was ‘lit’ . . of course !!

it was theatrical, and low key all at once. and it was awesome.
esp in the way the ‘drop’ was just casually ‘surrounded’ by thin white string, on a jerry0rigged perimeter of 4 poles.
drunken party revelers, watch out !!
and then it just all went compositonally ‘quiet’ . . as it echoed back into the old storefront’s vast distance . . with sandbags.
well, like I said, . . . and, just like QUIET. you had to be there.
photos and words can only get you so far.
esp in the digital age, it seems art will not simply reside on a flat page, or in a text-driven review.
get your head around that, and JOSH and SEAN become one.
how to say it simply.
it’s, like how . . add a few dimensions, like add a few letters. and art becomes: pARTy.

well anyways, JOSH HARRIS was/is a web guru turned artist/curator . . and SEAN VEGEZZI is a street photog turned curator, who took his show’s main curatorial premise, and switched up .. disciplines.
SEAN photographs the young and usually unsung ‘heros’ of the street, and street art. and usually from down below, as in the deep dark and forbidden ‘warrens’ of the old subway infrastructure.
here he’s going .. all ‘URS FISHER’ on us, and well done. too. and he’s upped the format.
see the LIGHT, is all I can say at this point.

like ‘QUIET’, what’s a New Year’s Party . . without the stage, and the twinkle of holiday lights.

yes, those are ‘nouveau wave’ paintings by CLAUDIA SCHWALB, behind the stage.

and then just a little further down the room, was this . . magic circle of lit red candles.

whether this was intentional or not, done by one artist, or a match-up made in curatorial art heaven. I don’t know, but here’s what the total message said: burning circle of red candles / incredibly single. (!!)

that’s how you felt at ‘QUIET’, too.
for all the WE LIVE IN PUBLIC common areas, and 24/7 surveillance cameras.

there it is . . in black and white.
the ultimate human . . breakdown.

it brought me back to this . . piece. on another floor, though still sub-basement.
so interesting, how ‘stark’ simple color graphics, bold letter fonts, and lonely words . . can bring ‘human’ back into the picture, amidst the charming twinkle and spell of . . party lights.
in the far flung web of the digital age, it appears it’s even more so . . all about: singularity.